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Sports need enterprising focus

Sport in T&T has to adapt and fine-tune due to the economic downturn. It’s plain and simple as that.

The impact of the global economic challenges and now local has created problems such as the unavailability of funds. Many non-profit membership sports organisations - we’re in it not for the support of either or the Ministry of Sport and the Sports Company of T&T - would be technically insolvent. The question is what to do? What are the options if there are any?

Given the size of our population consideration must be given as to what will allow or foster positive cash flow within our sport and governing bodies?

Are we ready and willing to embrace the opportunities?

At the heart of the uncertainty as for the global sports business community, T&T continues to face paradigm altering changes.

Digital transformation has changed the way all sports are distributed and in so doing creating new opportunities for all sports stakeholders.

How are we going about identifying and analysing these local, regional and international opportunities? How do we create a well-developed theory and empirical evidence?

Do we have a culture that inhibits how individuals perceive opportunities? What are the characteristics that enable entrepreneurs to start ventures against all odds and keep them alive even in the worst of times, and if you don’t have those characteristics can they be developed?

To move past the current situation in respect of negative cash flow it is important to promote entrepreneurial thinking in the domain of sport to foster.

In T&T sport there are people with entrepreneurial potential and potential entrepreneurs who can make a significant contribution to improve the current situation.

Not being able to pay your bills and knowing that things are not going well should be a great motivator for national sports organisations and governing bodies to focus on an entrepreneurial future.

In a very significant way, local sports organisations will have to create new organisations with a new mindset. Naturally, there are liabilities of newness that will arise. Included are the costs of learning new tasks as time and training will be needed to upskill stakeholders to the new tasks they may be asked to perform.

There will be some overlap or gaps in responsibilities causing conflict until sufficient knowledge is gained. Priority focus will need to be paid to educating and training so that knowledge and skills will develop to meet the needs of the new organisation.

It’s not all doom and gloom. We all should be excited by the opportunity to move from strategic planning to strategic learning.

Brian Lewis is the President of the T&T Olympic Committee (TTOC) and the views expressed are not necessarily those of the organisation.